A few weeks ago, my good friend designer Kristen Hodges asked me to be a part of her team in her start-up Brandingenuity, which is a design studio comprised of freelancers who collaborate to fulfill the creative needs of clients. The team is also comprised of web developer Steve Thomas-Patel and copywriter Tiffany Silverberg. The site is now launched, so go check it out!

I created a piece for a poem I really like called “Traveling Through the Dark” by William Stafford. It goes like this:

Traveling through the Dark

BY WILLIAM E. STAFFORD

Traveling through the dark I found a deer

dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car

and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—

her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;

under the hood purred the steady engine.

I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;

around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,

then pushed her over the edge into the river.

A bit morbid, but I think the piece is cleverly written. I also like the way the difficult choice is presented.

The illustration:

Lately I’ve been trying to include more mixed media in my pieces. Usually, I create a drawing using only pen and ink. Here, only the man is inked. The trees and the deer are done in pencil, and I used an ink brush pen to create the smokey stuff. I like the texture from the ink brush, and the hazy quality from the pencil is cool, too. I noticed that my recent pieces have darker and more saturated colors. Interesting. This might have to do with the subject matter of those pieces, though.

This is what the original drawing looks like, pieced together in Photoshop:

I had the pleasure of working with AD Lisa Zangerl of the Humanist to create the cover of their September/October issue! The latest issue features the words and work of prominent feminists like Susan Jacoby and Gloria Steinem.

For the cover, Lisa wanted to portray a group of strong, diverse women coming together and overcoming an obstacle, and she wanted these women to closely resemble the photograph in which several marines are raising the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. You can view the photograph here. Lisa also asked that the flag on the cover portray the official logo of the American Humanist Association.

I created ten spot illustrations for Desk.com’s latest infographic; this new one highlighted customer service milestones through history. You can see the full version of the infographic on their blog. Here are a couple of the spots:

Today I got hooked on reading stories of missing persons. I find these stories extremely tragic because generally you already know the outcome, even if the authorities haven’t found any sign of the person yet. Also, most of the stories I read were incredibly bizarre as there seemed no plausible explanation as to how they could have disappeared.

I thought of a quick black and white illustration that would be loosely based on an actual missing person that I was reading about. I found I didn’t like the direction of the piece, so I started messing around with pens, pencils, and brushes, and came up with a couple of simple experiments using Photoshop.